Conversations
by FairyLightsAndGlitter
Summary: A collection of one-shot conversations between various characters about various matters. Each chapter stands alone and if a pairing/character comes up more than once, the chapter will not be linked to any previous chapters with that pairing/characterisation. The conversations will be in no particular order and at different times in the HP universe/world.


**Running Away**- a Rose/Scorpius conversation

_This promise doesn't have to be too loud,  
Just whisper, I could find you in a crowd,  
I think it's time we ran away...  
_- The Maine

"Have you ever thought about it?" he asks her as he absentmindedly plays with her hair, twirling the vibrant red tendrils around his fingers.

"Thought about what?" she asks sleepily, moving her head from her pillow to his chest, giving his collar bone a quick kiss in the process.

"Running away?" he questions, kissing her forehead.

"All the time." she nods, stroking his ever so slightly stubbly cheek.

"All the time?"

"Well, not running away specifically, but I can never help but think about escaping..." she replies, sighing a little.

"Is there a difference?" he asks, sounding concerned.

"Yes. If I run away I won't have escaped." is her reply.

"What if we both ran away- together?" he asks her hesitantly as he wraps an arm around her waist.

"What do you mean?"

"I think we should run away, Rosie." he says quickly, unsure as to how she'll react but desperate to know all the same. This plan has been formed in his head to some degree for the last six months or so.

"I think we should too." she answers quite slowly, snuggling closer.

"But it's no good running away if you still feel the need to escape..." he points out the one flaw that has always been present in his little plan- what if running away doesn't end up making either of them feel better?

"I might not feel the need to escape though, Scor. When I'm with you the thoughts get quiet and fade to almost nothingness." she admits with a grin, hit with her usual overpowering rush of affection for him. She had long ago stopped caring about how cheesy and cliche their conversations could sometimes be.

"So what you're saying is that-"

"That you make me feel free, Scor. That being with you makes me feel alive in all the best and worst ways." she kisses him gently after saying this, shifting her position so that they are now facing each other in bed, arms wrapped around each other.

"If we run away, do you think you'll be able to escape them? The thoughts, I mean?" he checks.

"I think so. It's just being here, you know?" she replies, gesturing at the empty Slytherin dormitory around them but meaning the school in general. They should have been in lessons two hours ago.

"Yeah, it makes me crazy." he agrees, thinking of the hatred and the hypocrisy and the stares and the routineness and the tedium and the discipline and the complete lack of freedom. Lots of people adored Hogwarts. He and Rose thought that they may be the only to to ever have been exceptions to that rule.

"Even at home it's bad most of the time, I'm just not like the others and I feel so false and trapped when I'm at home. So trapped." she tells him and he nods understandingly, knowing exactly what she meant about not fitting in with family.

"Remember when they told us Hogwarts would be the best years of our lives?"

"Such bullshit."

"Why do you think we're different?"

"Because we're trapped in a world of horrendous reality and magic isn't enough anymore?" she asks, only half joking.

"Yeah, something like that. It's not all horrendous, though." he replies, serious.

"No, it isn't," she replies thoughtfully, "what do you think will be enough, Scor?" she asks, wide-eyed and a little afraid of what his answer might be.

"Us." he answers simply, grinning at her and kissing her quickly.

"Us?" she echoes, slightly skeptical.

"Yes, us. We will be enough, Rosie. You and me." he tells her, this time she lets herself believe him.

"And that's what scares me." she whispers almost inaudibly.

"Why's that?"

"You know as well as I do how dangerous this is."

"Yes, but it's so-"

"Worth it, I know. I know it's worth it and I know it's everything and that you are everything and when we're together everything feels so real in all the best ways, it's just.."

"Scary as shit." he states bluntly.

"You said it." she replies.

"I get what you mean, Rose, I really truly do. I can't explain how terrified I was when I realised how much I cared about you, when I realised that this would never be just a teenage fling. The everythingness of it almost made me want to run away from you."

"And yet now you want to run away with me instead! Ironic, huh?" she says, laughing slightly.

"Ironic indeed. But anyway, what scared me most was the fact that I needed you so much, you know?"

"I know, I can't explain how many times I tried to keep reminding myself not to let you in, not to let you make me vulnerable." she shakes her head at this and hold his hand.

"But I managed, and so did you," he smiles, kissing the top of her head.

"That doesn't stop us from being afraid, though." she doesn't want them to hide this topic under the table like they have done countless times before.

"Of course it doesn't, but maybe that's okay- maybe it's okay to be afraid." he muses, frowning slightly in concentration.

"Maybe it is. I'm not afraid of you, though Scor, I'm just afraid of how you make me feel." she sighs slightly, adjusting herself so that she's completely wrapped in his embrace.

"Likewise, Miss Weasley, likewise." is his reply as he pulls her still closer towards him and grins at the way she immediately rests her head on his chest. She sits up, then, suddenly serious and he looks carefully at her pained expression instead of at her bare breasts.  
"Do you mean it, Scor? Can we really run away? From everything that hurts- at least for a while?" she asks with a desperately pleading expression on her face.

"I think we can, yes." he replies sincerely, knowing how important it is to remove her from this toxic environment before it breaks her further.

"I love you, Scorpius." she tells him, shaking her head at how ridiculously true this fact is.

"I love you too, Rose." he replies equally sincerely. She grins and kisses him quickly but passionately before hopping off his bed and pulling some parchment and a quill from a drawer in his bedside table and he once again tries to focus on the conversation at hand instead of the fact that she's wearing a pair of his boxers and nothing else.

"Okay, so let's plan how we're going to go about this- when we're going and where we're going and stuff, yeah?"

"Okay," he nods, "but let's not overplan, let's leave a lot of this stuff undecided."

"Perfect," she grins; the two have always had a thing for spontaneity and that would likely never change.

"I'm thinking we should go as soon as possible, maybe even tonight." he says and she nods.

"Yes, tonight makes sense. Now, as we're in non-compulsory Seventh year and don't give a shit about NEWTs, we don't have to worry about getting permission to leave and that obviously makes it all a lot easier."

"Yep, it certainly does," he agrees, "I think we should go out for a drink in The Three Broomsticks tonight and then apparate to wherever it is we're going from Hogsmeade."

"Yes, definitely. I think we should send letters from there to the Head and to our parents just to say we'll no longer be attending Hogwarts, but we won't say where we're going." Rose says, knowing that this was the responsible thing to do.

"And from there, where should we go?" he asks, grinning at her and laughing at the impossible question.

"I don't know- we could go anywhere at all, couldn't we?" she says in wonder, half confused about why they'd bothered to stay until early December at all.

"We could. We can basically afford anywhere and we could do anything everywhere." he laughs, the prospect is overwhelming.

"How about everywhere?" she asks with a grin.

"Travelling?"

"Yeah, let's see the world. We'll go from place to place as and when we feel like it, maybe going home now and then to prove we aren't dead. But yeah, let's go anywhere and everywhere until the need to run away goes away. Eventually I think we'll find our place." Rose suggests passionately, her blue eyes lighting up at the very thought, her voice drops to an almost tentative whisper at the last sentence.

"You and me and the entire world. Nothing could be more perfect than that." he knows how stupid that might sound, but he just doesn't care. She laughs and moves closer to him and they kiss, knowing that in just a few hours they'd be free and would truly start living.


End file.
